Posted on 07/04/2015 7:37:56 AM PDT by PROCON
WASHINGTON — Health insurance companies around the country are seeking rate increases of 20 percent to 40 percent or more, saying their new customers under the Affordable Care Act turned out to be sicker than expected. Federal officials say they are determined to see that the requests are scaled back.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans — market leaders in many states — are seeking rate increases that average 23 percent in Illinois, 25 percent in North Carolina, 31 percent in Oklahoma, 36 percent in Tennessee and 54 percent in Minnesota, according to documents posted online by the federal government and state insurance commissioners and interviews with insurance executives.
The Oregon insurance commissioner, Laura N. Cali, has just approved 2016 rate increases for companies that cover more than 220,000 people. Moda Health Plan, which has the largest enrollment in the state, received a 25 percent increase, and the second-largest plan, LifeWise, received a 33 percent increase.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
BOHICA!
How much of a Kickback does Obama get ?
That's for their Obamacare exchange policies.
They haven't announed their rate increases for other lines of business yet (that I've heard).
Remember how much these big insurance companies fought obamacare? They didn’t. They were in bed with Hussein.
The were told they were going to manager it. They wouldn’t have competition. They didn’t want competition across state lines.
Now they can charge what they want and we have to buy it.
Another SCOTUS decision bough and paid for bu the Corporations.
BC/BS won’t tell us Medicare subscribers till late this year. October, most likely — when we have that window of opportunity to change plans.
This monster is on the loose, and it will eat us alive.
But as the Chinese philosopher said, there's a downside to living in interesting times.
Someone is going to have to pay for the merger and it is going to be us.
Comcast and Timewarner have jacked up internet only rates as well for their potential merger. In Minneapolis, Minnesota it is around $61 for 25mb after the 1st year of $30 a month is up.
Aetna to acquire Humana for $37 billion [Obamacare Moves Closer to Full Blown Fascism]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3307276/posts
Yes, I believe that was meant as a curse.
Yep, all with a gun to your head to buy it.
Yep. Like Steppenwolf’s “Monster”.
The wild card is technological advances that so change things, we can’t predict the future.
If we were like the Roman empire with its static technology, we’d be done for.
The more these rates are increased,the less will be sold. Some,possibly many,will be dropped,because it is unaffordable now,it won’t be better when rates go up. The whole idea is insane & you know they want a single payer system. Other insurance besides health insurance is going the same route. Once they get all you have & spend it,they will need more.
Darn right wing media. They hate Obama because he is so successful.....oh, it the Times......
It is a wealth transfer scheme. High rates, offset by subsidies for those the government determines deserve the subsidies. The rest pay through the nose.
The other dimension of the wealth transfer is the creation and funding of new government bureaucracies to administer the system and provide grant funding to favored progressive nonprofits, advocacy groups, academics, and consultants for a never ending series of expensive studies. These studies and projects do nothing but line the pockets of people like Gruber and Cass Sunstein who continue to think of ways to exert more control over the population. The bureaucracies themselves siphon billions of dollars off the top to fund the salaries and benefits of bureaucrats who contribute nothing to improved health or real cost reduction.
The only way to control costs in such a system is to reduce demand. This is accomplished by driving costs so high the elderly cannot afford care and will forego care thereby hastening end of life. If these collective decisions to reduce demand don’t do the job, the death panels, and regulations directing specific treatment for conditions at various stages of the life cycle, will do the job.
Effectively all that has been accomplished is layering billions of dollars of additional cost on an already bloated system and changing the way the costs are allocated.
Well said.
And the gov’t control inhibits new procedures and ways of delivering healthcare, that could both improve it and drive down costs.
Just as I’ve said for years now. The insurance companies can still ask for rate increases (and other changes), just as they did before Obamacare. And they will get them because they have a huge lobby in D.C. and in all State legislatures. Same as before.
So, no change, which was Obama’s whole campaign.
Obama said that everyone would save 2500 on premiums ... he lied, lied, lied.
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